The Loop
Max Muncy tells Madison Bumgarner to fetch his home run out of the bay if he doesn't like it
Thearon W. Henderson
Last week, we brought you the story of Dodgers pitcher Walker Buehler, who was caught shouting "don't f—ing look at me" and "sit the f—k down" at lldemaro Vargas after striking out the Diamondbacks second baseman in a heated (but don't worry, it's a dry heat) NL West matchup. In the eternal battle of pitchers vs. batters, we chalked a big one up for all the aces, journeymen, setup guys, and, yes, even knuckleballers of the world. Less than a week later, however, the batters have already evened the score thanks to one Max Muncy, who buried Madison Bumgarner shallow on Sunday with this incredible post-dinger pillow talk:
Pitchers: 1, Batters: 1
None of this should be much of a surprise coming from Bumgarner (not exactly a big "Let the Kids Play" guy), who said after the game, “I can’t even say it with a straight face but the more I think about it, I should just let the kids play. But I just...I can’t...They want to let everybody be themselves, then let me be myself. That’s me.”
Despite Bumgarner's steadfast commitment to being the guy everybody tries to avoid at the punch bowl, these flamethrower burns still had to sting a bit, especially coming from a dreaded Dodger. Speaking of which, the Dodgers are now responsible for both runs in the cosmic Pitcher-Batter box score, so perhaps we should look at this another way:
Dodgers: 2, Everybody Else: 0